Usage of social media as an education resource among medical students at Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya

Abstract

INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVES: Social media (SM) networks has become a popular educational tool at present. There is limited data in Sri Lanka on SM usage as an educational tool. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usage of SM for academic purposes among medical students of faculty of Medicine University of Kelaniya. METHODS: Stratified sampling with proportional allocation was used to select students from each batch and 287 students were recruited from 1st to 5th year. Informed written consent was obtained and a self-administered questionnaire was given. 255 completed questionnaires were returned. RESULTS: Of 255, 86.95% students used SM for educational purposes with no male and female difference (P=0.06). 90.6%, 61.6% and 56.1% accessed Facebook, Google + and YouTube respectively. Of them, 67.1%, 44.7% and 33.9% respectively accessed them daily for academic purposes respectively. 84.2% students followed medical related web sites through SM. 84.5% had joined educational groups in SM and 44.9% had joined academic discussions or information sharing groups in other local and foreign universities. 43.3% could not find information that they want due to information overload and 38.1% mentioned that SM disturbed their academic work. CONCLUSION: Majority had used SM for educational purposes without gender preference. Facebook, Google+ and YouTube are the commonest SM educational tools and majority had joined educational groups. SM had disturbed academic work of students and difficulty to find correct information was major concern among students.